Drop on demand inkjet technology for producing printed images has been employed in products such as printers, multifunction products, plotters, and facsimile machines. Generally, an inkjet image is formed by selectively ejecting ink drops from a plurality of drop generators or inkjets, which are arranged in a printhead, onto an image receiving substrate. For example, the printhead and the image receiving substrate may be moved relative to one other and the inkjets may be controlled to emit ink drops at appropriate times. The timing of the inkjet activation is performed by a printhead controller, which generates firing signals that activate the inkjets to eject ink. The image receiving substrate may be an intermediate image member, such as a print drum or belt, from which the ink image is later transferred to a print medium, such as paper. The image receiving substrate may also be a moving continuous web of print medium or sheets of a print medium onto which the ink drops are directly ejected. The ink ejected from the inkjets may be liquid ink, such as aqueous, solvent, oil based, UV curable ink, or the like, which is stored in containers installed in the printer. Alternatively, the ink may be loaded in a solid or a gel form and delivered to a melting device, which heats the ink to generate liquid ink that is supplied to a printhead.
The number of ink drops ejected onto the image receiving substrate within a defined length is referred to as a print resolution. In general, the print resolution of an ink color is measured in two directions. First, the print resolution may be measured in a process direction, which is parallel to a direction of media travel through the printer. Second, the print resolution may be measured in a cross process direction, which is perpendicular to the process direction and in the plane of the media surface. The print resolution of an ink color as measured in the process direction is configurable with printer software. However, the print resolution of an ink color as measured in the cross process direction is less configurable. Specifically, the cross process direction print resolution may be decreased from a native resolution by ejecting the ink color with less than all of the inkjet ejectors of a printhead, such that less ink droplets are ejected onto the image receiving substrate as measured in the cross process direction. However, in single pass printers, in which the media passes by the printheads only one time, the cross process direction print resolution of known inkjet printers may not be increased above the native resolution because additional inkjet ejectors may not be added to known printheads. For example, if a printhead of an inkjet printer includes a printhead having one hundred fifty inkjet ejectors per inch as measured in the cross process direction, the maximum cross process direction printhead resolution of an image formed in a single pass by the printhead is one hundred fifty ink droplets per inch. Therefore, increased flexibility in the print resolution of inkjet imaging systems is desirable.